MARLBOROUGH PEOPLE: Wendy Sawyer's time volunteering in India

When I heard through a mutual acquaintance about local resident Wendy Sawyer's time working as a volunteer in India I asked if she would be willing to share her experiences and photos with Marlborough People. Luckily she said yes. What follows is a brief account of her trip in her own words.

After retiring from my work as a health visitor in Swindon, I achieved a lifetime ambition to work as a volunteer in India in October 2008. Despite India’s great prosperity and economic importance, 70% of the population- about 330 million people, live in rural areas in very basic conditions.

Working in Rajasthan, which is one of the driest regions in India, I was hoping to contribute to the improvement of local education and health of the village families I worked with.

On arriving in New Delhi we caught the train to Jaifer – via the the Taj Mahal, for our 3 day orientation programme. We stayed with a lovely Rajput family and learned about Indian history and cultures, Hindu religion and gods, the Hindu language and finally about our work in a remote desert area of Rajasthan.

Our camp consisted of mud and brick huts with straw roofs- plenty of holes for sparrows and mice! Our huts had a mud brick wall around them, giving a slight impression of prison walls!

My work was at an Indian day centre or Aanganwari, set up by the government to provide a safe, secure learning environment for the village children. I worked with Barbara, an art therapist from Germany. We were taken to and from the villages by a four wheel drive car, and were accompanied by one of the project co-ordinators, Rajish, who also acted as an interpreter.

The children of Sunderpur Aanganwari were aged between 18 months and 5 years- totally delightful in every way- bright, happy, keen to learn, well mannered and polite. We played with balloons, taking turns, singing nursery rhymes, drawing, painting, and they loved the books I brought- especially “The Tiger who came to Tea” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. After the morning’s teaching and play the children were given a bowl of rice and a drink of water- reward for attending the day centre!

We bought the children bananas or apples each day from the market to supplement their rice meal.

After lunch for us back at the camp we then went to the village of Baghai, where I worked with Fay, an art teacher from Hitchin, where we worked with 9-11 year olds, teaching English conversation in a government primary school. It was very basic- no tables or chairs, and we brought in the books, pencils etc each day. A pump in the village supplied the water to the school. The children became so thirsty in the heat.

The children were keen to learn, polite, and great fun. We taught health promotion as part of their lessons, and had small cotton bags made by the local tailor and bought tooth brushes, toothpaste and combs for the children. The highlight of the lesson was tooth brushing by the pump!

I also made home visits to families with health concerns in Sunderpur, providing basic health and hygene awareness and nutrition advice. I also attended a child health clinic, run by a doctor and midwife, where babies received immunisations and general health checks. The government supplied powdered milk for children under 5 years- although all the mothers breast feed their babies.

We had yoga sessions each morning before breakfast, learnt Indian cookery and attended hindi classes. Our cook also gave us Indian head massages and henna tattoos- a talented lady!

I felt privileged to work as a volunteer in India. My abiding memories of the towns and cities were the heat, the noise of horns, motorbikes and lorries, smells from exhaust fumes, fires, cooking and animals- cows, goats, chickens and camels, and people rushing and shouting everywhere. In contrast, the villages I worked in were gentle, peaceful and quiet, except for laughing children, and the sound of women talking and laughing when they were collecting water or doing their washing at the pumps. The people had so little materially, but were so welcoming and kind to us.

On returning to Marlborough I was stunned at first when walking in to Waitrose- all that food and all those people with so much!